This was a really interesting novel told through stories – not nearly as madcap as A Visit From the Goon Squad but a similar idea / form. The establishing story reveals the origin of what will be a super bug, a pandemic with horrific consequences. Each subsequent story picks up on a related aspect of the ensuing hundreds (or, in some cases, thousands) of years during and post pandemic. Each story explores something a little different – grief writ large, as the world experiences during a devastating pandemic; the cottage industries that spring up to accommodate a world forced to confront so much death (here Nagamatsu imagines some truly creepy and yet JUST plausible innovations to the “funerary economy”). While Nagamatsu isn’t afraid to explore the consequences of the pandemic with creativity, this is also a novel that is at its core about people relating to one another. Parents and children deal with separation, difficult reunions, and the impossible ways we treat the people we love the most. He writes about yearning for connection, even if it is in the most obscure of places.
The novel begins with a grieving father, attempting to complete the mission his daughter, Clara, was a part of in Siberia before her tragic death. When Cliff joins the research team, he’s intending to help them learn more about their recent discovery – a preserved prehistoric child they call Annie. He doesn’t know that he is setting in motion the events that will spread a horrific disease around the world – he just wants to finish what his world-traveling daughter could not. As we travel around the world through each of the following chapters, we will hear echoes of this story – paintings by Clara’s artist mother show up, another chapter focuses on what happens to Clara’s mother and daughter as the planet searches desperately for a way to continue humanity. There are moments of mundane connection that receive their payoff in off-hand comments by characters in later chapters, children who age (or, tragically, do not) and endure through another story. This is a book about the way that we are so terrible at loving, and yet so incapable of stopping ourselves from giving it a go – we end up in absurd situations, like developing a parental relationship towards a semi-sentient pig.
The final chapter provides a sort of wrap-up that I’m not quite sure worked well for me (it was maybe a bit TOO much). It’s not exactly a festive novel, something about the tone made me think it might be better suited to summertime (maybe because there are more opportunities for stepping outside, contemplating the vastness of what we’re dealing with here). It manages to present an outlook that is equal parts heartbreaking and fulfilling. The writing is lovely – it’s both a quick read and a slow, meditative book. When you’re in the mood for something a bit bleak but still connected to humanity, give this a go.